Energy Drink Drumbeat: Class Action Filed Against Redline

A Texas man has filed a class-action lawsuit against Vital Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the makers of VPX Redline, claiming the product made him sick and was marketed deceptively.

Redline, an energy drink known for having extremely high concentrations of caffeine, also contains a wide variety of ingredients beyond caffeine-containing compounds, including Yohimbine, 5-HTP, evodiamine, tyrosine, and vinpocetine. According to the lawsuit, there was no lack of information about those ingredients on the Redline cans — there was actually so much that the type was hard to read and smaller than the lettering required by the Food and Drug Administration.

According to Adam Mirabella, he bought a bottle of VPX Redline Xtreme Energy Drink Watermelon Flavor last July at a gas station in Cedar Park, Texas. After drinking one serving of the product, Mirabella’s lawsuit says, his heart began racing, “he suffered extreme chest pain that felt like a heart attack, he lost sensation in his hands, and he had extreme nausea.”

Mirabella said he was hospitalized and required sedation for two days after drinking the Redline — and that its “adverse side effects resembled a cocaine overdose.”

As a result of those effects, Mirabella is claiming that Redline is unsafe because of the many of the ingredients it contains, which, according to the lawsuit, “are notable for the adverse effects they cause to humans that go well beyond the goal… of energy enhancement.”

The lawsuit comes at a time when energy drinks are receiving increased scrutiny from media and government officials; currently, Monster is being sued over the death of a 14 year-old girl and Senator Richard Durbin has prodded the FDA to further clarify its views on the safety of energy drinks.